chicken and flesh

I made a roast chicken last night for J’s department chair and his wife (who is also in the department). I was stewing about which recipe to use for most of the day, flitting back and forth between the famous Zuni Cafe roasted chicken or the simpler Jamie Oliver one. I salted the bird beforehand, leaving open the possibility of the Zuni recipe, but when J’s electric oven refused to play nicely, topping out at a respectable-but-too-cool 425º, I had to switch to the Jamie Oliver one. I worried that the salting would screw up the prescribed basting, but I found that I really never needed to baste it. I had planned to photograph the whole process, from bird to bite, but alas, my camera battery died and I don’t have my charger in Kentucky. Argh. I couldn’t find my phone for most of the day and so I’ve got little proof that splitting the difference between the recipes yielded a rather tasty meal.

When our guests arrived, I really droned on about how horrible the chicken was going to be, about how I was a poultry novice, about the damned oven, about my playing fast and loose between recipes. I’m a firm believer in the magic of lowered expectations. That way when the first tentative bite makes its way into your guest’s mouth, you can watch the palpable relief wash over his face. It’s a real treat, even better than cake.

That first bite, though, was delayed by my grabbing the 425º skillet with my bare hand.* It was just one of those quick and scorching moments of mindlessness. I spent the rest of the evening with my hand plunged in a bucket of cold water because whenever I tried to pull it out, I was beset by a shocking amount of pain. As we strategized our job situation with our guests, talking about ways to better position myself here, I couldn't help but feel my heart beat in my developing blisters. You know that feeling, when you're so attuned to the pain that you can listen to your heartbeat right there.

I tried to fall asleep with my hand in the bucket but--surprise--it just wasn't working. J insisted on strapping frozen peas to my hand with an ace bandage. It did the trick. I slept most of the night and awoke to a slightly-shriveled-but-hardly-worse-for-the-wear hand. Now if I could only remember all the advice his colleagues offered...

*It took a relaxing jog in the woods to jog my brain toward the obvious: yesterday I was flip-flopping between recipes because I was obsessed with getting the skin of the chicken just right. I wanted it super crispy, the way my father used to make it, and the Zuni recipe promised just such a thing. I was crestfallen when the low temps of the oven prevented my using that recipe. I burned myself--duh--in a moment of obsession about charring the flesh. It might as well have been intentional now that I think about it. And then what does that say about me?